Of course not. I think part of the appeal is simply the mystery surrounding the episodes, or the challenge of finding them.
And equally, there are some stories with a single surviving episode where that episode looks to be the dud, so they'd probably have better reputations if a different episode had survived (Enemy of the World, Space Pirates and, proving the point rather, Underwater Menace on the strength of part three). And similarly there are some complete stories which would probably be better regarded if only a single episode survived, provided it was the right episode (The Space Museum 1, for instance... creepy and weird, with none of that 'Run along corridors and let's have the revolution right here' stuff that clogs up the other three).
The Enemy of the World definitely. The story is brilliant, and it's a shame the weakest episode survived.
Rich Johnston has another article up. It's 40 episodes! No, it's 93! And they'll be showing "The Web of Fear" on BBC 4 in November! And releasing "The Enemy of the World" on DVD! And everybody gets a pony! Meanwhile, the debate on Gallifrey Base and the Missing Episodes Forum has become ever more ridiculous, complete with faked tweets, speculation about a haul so big even dozens of Doctor Who episodes would seem insignificant, and the claim that calling a rumor "nonsense" hardly qualifies as a denial. There's still no actual evidence of anything, but if you have too much time on your hands, it beats taking up knitting.
He's obviously just getting off on trolling GB and the like. (That said, I could easily believe there'll be a screening of The Web Of Fear on BBC4 in November - with the caveat that I mean I could believe they'd show the one single surviving episode as part of a theme night!)
I would be more suprised if they didn't do a theme night on either BBC3 or 4. Following on from the airing of the 50th Anniversary special.
The speculation and the rumors won't go away! Therefore there most be some truth in all of this! Something was found! We just don't know what or how much!
That's pretty much the definition of logical fallacy right there. If there was any truth out there then the details, all supposedly coming from insiders, wouldn't vary so wildly.
I've got a theory, well two actually. The first one is that they have indeed found a large number of lost episodes, but not the 108, but the films of episodes that they have still retained, but not in broadcast form, for instance the original colour versions of Ambassadors of death and/or Mind of Evil. I believe that the surviving episodes from the 60s are not the original films but video recordings that involved the film being played on a screen and then someone at the BBC pointing a video camera at it to record it for overseas sales purposes. Can anyone else confirm whether thats what happened with the B & W era episodes? The second option is the reason all these people in the Dr Who production office have signed NDAs only to then spill the beans about missing episodes to all and sundry is a clever bit of misdirection by Moffat and co. In reality they've got big things to come for Nu Who and don't want the fans to find out before they should and so have us all chasing our tails hunting down missing episodes. Thats my two penneth anyway.
That's roughly what was going around the Tavern a month ago, except it was Marco Polo rather than Web of Fear that was going to be run on BBC4. But without any proof to back it up, it's nothing more than rumours.
That's exactly what was done. It's called "telerecording." It's how Doctor Who was sent overseas. The video tape would be run on a high resolution monitor and the playback would be filmed on (I believe) 16 millimeter film at the necessary frame rate. The original master video tapes remained in London until they were eventually wiped and reused.
Did they specify the breed of pony? I don't think Johnston is trolling anybody; I think he really imagines that there's truth to at least some of these rumors. And maybe there is, though the odds that a high-double-digits number of episodes have been found are vanishingly small. (Where would they all come from? And why have none of the rumors managed to get into that, beyond the emphatically-denied claims about Phil Morris and some gubbins about an eccentric African engineer?) But what Johnston doesn't seem to grasp is that (some) members of the production team are part of classic series fandom like everybody else, and prone to the same wild speculation, wishful thinking, and garbled rumors. Missing episodes aren't the professional territory of people who work on the new series-- I doubt many of them would even be told ahead of time about any discovery; they weren't two years ago-- and being "heavily associated with the production team" (whatever that means) doesn't make for a reliable source.
Actually, this rumor, came about before the information was released about the last two episodes (Galaxy 4; Underwater Menace) that were found (People who knew of the rumor and believed it, thought the 2 episodes was just the tip of the iceberg, and that TPB were holding out. Once those two episodes were announced, the rumor pretty much crawled back under it's rock, until this guy started trumpeting it as having some credibility.
I'm going to disagree with that. The rumors of other finds never went away and continued to be discussed in the hushed tones that they had been before. What Bleeding Cool did was pull off the lid on the story and expose it to the light. I think someone was going to do that sooner rather than later, because the missing episode chatter was getting rather loud.
He's far more definitive on Gallifrey Base, after that was picked apart as being an ambiguous non-denial denial by a number of people, including GB owner Steven W. Hill. Said Vanezis:
I saw the link to this at Gallifrey Base and, if true, it's certainly puzzling. The Restoration Team has had their contract extended through 2016. If true, why? If nothing has been recovered, then the DVD range is done this year. So what would they be doing the next three years? Curious.